Sermon: A Faithful Example

One Thessalonians chapter one and this evening we're going to look at verses one through 10. So lemme pray for us before we open God's word this evening. Father, we do pray that you would unfurl the truth of your word, that it would be like scales have dropped from our eyes this evening that we would see clearly,

that we would hear your voice and that we would know the stirring of your spirit. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ. Amen. First Thessalonians chapter one verses one through 10. This is a holy er, sufficient word of God, Paul Sylvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians. And God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering

before our God and Father, your work of faith in labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in Word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. And with full conviction you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord for you received the word

and much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonian, okay? For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything for they themselves report concerning us, the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living

and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come, the grass withers and the flower fates word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Four points this evening. Uh, one, I just wanna give some background as we begin to head our into this letter. And then I want to look at what Paul does here where he gives gratitude and then will look at his focus upon grace. And then finally we are going to look at the example that he puts before them. So background, gratitude, grace. An example, this epistle of the apostle Paul begins, if you'll note there with a greeting, he says it's from him, it's from Veni

or Silas and it is from Timothy. And these three had been crucial in the establishment of the church in Thessalonica, which was a leading city in a leading province in the Roman Empire, the province of Macedonia. In fact, Thessalonica was one of the key cultural and trade centers in Macedonia as it sat right on the Via Ignatia, which was the road that traveled from east to west across all of Greece and across all of Macedonian.

As you traveled that road across Greece and Macedonia, you would go through Thessalonica. And so it was a very strategic place, it was a hotbed of activity and it was no insignificant city. If you think back to the book of Acts and you go back to Acts 16 and there we begin to see the picture of how was it that this church in Thessalonica was planted or begun? And you remember there in Acts 16 that Paul has a vision and the vision is of a Macedonian that appears to him.

And this Macedonian man cries out to Paul and says to him, come, come to us, share the gospel with us. And so instead of heading East, Paul and his traveling companions will head west and they will go into Europe. When they go into Europe, they journeyed first to Philippi. And there you'll remember that they meet Lydia, the cellar of purple and she will be the first convert to Christianity in the continent of Europe. And there will begin to be other converts there in Philippi

and and there it will be that Paul and his companions will be, will be followed by this, this slave girl who is filled with a demon. And you'll remember that that slave girl keeps calling out like she is a herald for the apostle Paul. And she will cry out as they walk around. These men are servants of the most high God and they proclaim to you the way of salvation. Good message. But it was irritating to Paul. And so he cast the demon out.

Well that causes a ruckus because her owner had used that demon as it was in this girl to create money for himself. And so there begins to be a stirring of the population there. And there's a crowd that takes Paul and takes Veis or Silas and Timothy and they will begin to attack them and eventually Paul and Silas are imprisoned. They will be set free from the prison. If you remember, that is where the Philippian jailer is converted

and they are singing in the middle of the night and they will be set free there by an angel and they will go on to other cities, a couple of cities, and then they will land in Thessalonika. When they get into thessalonika, they will do as was Paul's practice, they will go into the synagogue and there in the synagogue Paul will preach from the Old Testament scriptures and he will preach about the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're told that

as he preached in the synagogue in Thessalonika there, there were not a few Greeks, meaning there were quite a few Greeks that came to saving faith and we're told that there were a few leading women of the city who believed and came to saving faith. We read in Acts 17 that Paul will teach there in that synagogue for three sabbaths. So somewhere around three or three and a half weeks he was preaching in the synagogue. Now there is a little bit of a debate among scholars.

Does that mean that Paul was only in Thessalonica for three, three and a half weeks or was it that he only preached in the synagogue for three or so weeks? And so maybe it was only in the synagogue he preached for three weeks, but he actually stayed in Thessalonica for a longer period of time than used it as a base of operations to go out and to preach in other places and other places in the city. And there is some evidence later in this book

as we'll get to and also in the book of Philippians that it's quite possible that he stayed there as long as a month, a month and a half. But regardless of how long Paul and his companions were there in Thesal and Nica as what happened to them in Philippi. So it happens to them in Thessalonica. Eventually people come and they stir up the population and they begin to attack Paul and they eventually force him to flee. He finds refuge in that great Greeks house, Jason

and he stays in that house of Jason before he has to be swept away and he is taken to Berea. But this time he decides to leave Silas and Timothy as he goes to Berea. When he gets in Berea, he finds that the berean receive the word like no one else had received the word. They receive it as we are told and acts readily

and he sees great fruit from his ministry there. But again, poor Paul, he, he never gets to quite see the the end of his ministries and how much fruit is born because again, people begin to to be riled up about this preaching and this apostle and what he is doing and accusations are brought against him. And once again a crowd is stirred up and once again, Paul is forced to leave.

So he goes on for safety, he will go to Athens and there he will preach in the Areopagus and there he is mocked. And from that place he will go to Corinth. Each place he stops, he he preaches, he begins to see a little bit of success, a little bit of reception of the word. And then there's persecution and there's threatenings and he never gets to see the fruit and he has to move on.

And no doubt Paul is disheartened, no doubt in many ways he's crushed. Maybe He was wrong in his understanding that he was supposed to go to Europe. He gets to Corinth and he says this in one Corinthians chapter two verse three. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling And That makes sense. Everything that Paul has been through

now he feels weak, he's trembling.

But then Silas and Timothy come from Macedonia and we read of it in Acts 18 and they came with wonderfully good news. God was working in Macedonia. And we read of that news in Acts 18 and it seems to, to hearten Paul, it seems to strengthen him and he needed that encouragement. And now with the reception of that news, now Silas and Timothy are back with him from Macedonia. They had stayed there longer and they had seen fruit begin to grow

and they'd seen churches begin to grow. And now they've come with that news to Paul. And now that he has heard that news, he's writing back to this church in Macedonia, one of these leading cities. And he is writing back to the church that has been established there in Thessalonica and there's much to be grateful for. There's also much that he needs to correct. We're gonna see in this book that he will spend a considerable amount

of time defending his ministry. Accusations have come that his motives are selfish and that he is self-centered and that he is all about himself. He's being slandered and his preaching of the gospels at stake. And so he defends himself and he will defend his own motives. In this book, he will also warn the thesal kins that they are to stand fur fa stand fast in the face of persecution. You remember Paul was persecuted there, he was beat there.

And so no doubt these thess, uh, Thessalonians, as they are gathering together for worship, their lives are in real peril. And so he's encouraging them to stand fast in this book. And then lastly, he will combat some theological errors that have arisen in the church there. So let's begin kinda walking our way through this, these opening verses with that as a backroom, the first thing that you'll note is he begins with gratitude.

He, he writes this letter back to them having received this good news about them and the church that has been established there. And he says this in verse two. We give thanks to God always for all of you. You read Paul's letters, he never shs away from encouraging those that he ministers to. He will pass out encouragement left and right and he does it yet again. We give thanks to God always for all of you. These are his brothers and sisters in Christ.

They've gathered together to worship. They have received the gospel. If we cannot give thanks for those whom we will spend eternity with, the problem is not with them, it's with us. He gives thanks for them every single one of them. He mentions three things that he's thankful for about them. First verse three, your work of faith. There are people of faith and the living God and their, their works for the glory of God come forth from that faith.

They, the faith they possess is not an idol faith. So second, he says he's thankful for their labor of love. He, he's heard that these Thessalonians are laboring and love for their savior and and that phrase has the idea of expending oneself for the sake of the kingdom of God. Laboring and not just mere drudgery, but service that flows from love. They've been gripped by love. So now they labor in love.

Third, there's steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. They're firmly rooted in Christ despite the trials, despite the tribulations they may face, they have affixed hope. They have a certainty in Christ. You notice what he does here in the opening is what he does often, he gives that great Christian triad, faith, hope, and love. Now these three things are are to mark the Christian because they mark the Christian faith, faith, hope and love.

And he says you have these have received evidence that these three things mark you. And so gratitude. He has gratitude for what they are and he has gratitude for who they are. But note in verse two, he gives that thanks to God, why? Because of our second point grace. This is where Paul goes in verses four and five. He notes that they have these three things. They have faith, they have hope, they have love. But what he notes about that is it was not their doing.

They didn't secure this. No. He says in verse four that God loved them and chose them. They're The very elective God. God chose them. Now how does Paul know that? Because he says our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the spirit with full conviction.

It's a great text to take people to that are struggling with election.

He says God elected you, he chose you. Well how do you know if you're chosen? How do you know if you're elected?

People Will turn themselves inside out with that. How Do I know if I'm the elect of God? How do I know if God chose me?

You know the scriptures never tell you to try and figure that out. What they tell you is just to believe.

And that's Paul's point. He knows that they're the elect of God because they believed, he knows they're elect of God because he says that with true conviction you grabbed a hold of this by the power of the spirit. He Knows it. God does choose and those he chooses believe you say, well why does he choose not because of anything in them? Notice Paul teaches the same thing that Moses taught Israel in Deuteronomy seven. Why do God choose Israel out

of all the nations on the face of the earth? Moses ass there in Deuteronomy seven. After that great Deuteronomy six and the great Shama there were the Hittites and the Gsites. He says the Amorites and the Canaanites, the parasites and the hivites, all kinds of its. And yet he chose you Israel. You're not. Its and he chose you. Why? And he's got a very simple answer. It was not because you were more in number, but it is

because the Lord loves you. Why Does he love you?

It's not because there's anything special about you. It's not because of anything that you were or that you are or that you shall be. He loves you because he loves you.

If it's based upon what you are or what you were or what you shall be, then you and I are the cause of his choosing. We're the masters of salvation.

Now it's his choice.

Why did God choose Israel? Moses says love. Why did God choose these Thessalonians? Paul says love. Why did he love them? Because he chose to love them. Salvation is from him and through him and into him gratitude grace. Now Paul focuses on example.

First he notes the example that he and Silas and Timothy provided for them. He says, you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. Verse six. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord. Now this may seem odd for two reasons. The first is that Paul emphasizes that they sought to be and the Thessalonians saw them as persons to imitate. He was saying one Corinthians very directly, one Corinthians four 16, I urge you then be imitators

of me. He follows that in the next verse was saying, that is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere and in every church. Paul points to himself seems odd as he self-consumed, as his opponents seem to be suggesting in Thessalonica, one would think maybe they have a cause to bring this charge against him. No, Paul knows that what he preaches only matters if it's shown in his life

and he can undo what he says by how he lives.

His life matches his words perfectly. No, he will say in Philippians, not that I've already already am this or already am perfect, but he's a man of Christ-like character. He knows that the preacher of the gospel as a preacher of the gospel, he is a model of the gospel. He is to embody what he preaches.

The second maybe odder thing might be not that he points to himself as worthy of imitation, but he lists himself before he lists Christ become imitators of us and of the Lord. You think it'd be reversed, be imitators of the Lord And also of us as Paul have an inflated view of himself, was reading a uh, a book about the missionary brothers, uh, David and John Brainerd uh, last week. They were really the first missionaries

to American Indians here in North America. And uh, Presbyterians will be the first to send missionaries to the Indians. And John Brainer being the first Presbyterian missionary to the American Indians. He followed David who was sent out by a group of Congregationalists and Presbyterians. And after David died, uh, one young Indian girl recalled her grandmother's memory of David. I want you to, I wanna read to you just this little paragraph of

what she said about David Brainerd Said He was a young man, he was a lovely man. He went about from house to house to talk about religion. That was his way. He slept on a dear skin or bare skin. He ate bare meat and samp then we knew he was not proud. He would come to my grandmother's and say, I am hungry, make haste. And she would take down the kettle and he would eat. But some of the people did not like him and said, what has this white man come here for?

We don't want him here. And they told him to go off. When the Indians assembled the danced and have a feast, he would go there also and go away in the bushes and pray for them. And then some said, we don't want this white man here. Let us make a way with him. But others said, no, we will not kill him. After a while they saw that he was an honest man and then they would do anything he said.

They were willing to follow and imitate Jesus only after they found the missionary worthy of following

or to imitate Christ chiefly. But we will not imitate Christ if we do not have others before us to show the way of Christ.

They begin by receiving him and imitating him and they go on to receive Christ and imitate Christ. Character matters to a witness more than you can possibly imagine.

People Believe what they believe about Christ by what they see in your life.

We are disciples. We follow after him. And the great pursuit of our life is just to look more like him. That's What should get you up in the morning.

I want to Look more like Christ today

So that I can truly say to others imitate me.

So Paul and Silas and Timothy are an example. But now he notes the Thessalonians are an example too.

It wouldn't have been easy to, as he says, receive the word as they did it. It's even harder to receive the word with the joy of the Holy Spirit as he says they did in light of the fact that they were being afflicted because of it. Remember Paul received much affliction and Thessalonica. So no doubt they are as well. They are no doubt being pose where they ridiculed, where they slandered. Were they cast out of their families? Were they threatened?

Were some of them beaten? We don't know. But they endured all of this with he says the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord said if the world hates you know that it hated me. Before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world. But I chose you out of the world. Therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you? A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me they will also persecute you. And the Thessalonians embodied this

even as Paul and Silas and Timothy has embodied this and their example. Paul says Their example became an example. He says to quote all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia, when we live for Christ the testimony that we give has Feet And it Travels. Your Faith says Paul, your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything.

It's interesting that David Brainerd only ministered for three years among the American Indians three years.

And yet it said that David Brainerd has sent more people into the mission field than anyone else in the history of the world.

'cause he kept the diary and he wrote down in his diary what he was wrestling through and what he was thinking. And so many people have read that diary and been stirred by that diary and wanted to imitate him.

I want a faith like that. I want a relationship with Christ like that. I want to have a love for the lost like that.

And it spread

Simply by a diary being kept.

But it's not simply by keeping a diary but by what we see in this passage. Paul sets a likeness before these Thessalonians. They imitate him. They then set a christlikeness before the rest of Macedonia and they imitate them and their lives are then imitated by others. And those others have their lives imitated by still others. And it just goes,

Here's what's fascinated. Didn't know till I was reading this past week and I am gonna make up the number 'cause I don't remember the exact number, but David Brainerd minister to those American Indians for three years. You've heard his name. John Brainerd, his brother followed him. He ministered to the American Indians for 37 years and you've never heard of him.

We are talking about all of those little villages that he ministered to. They disappeared within 50 years gone.

But The faith kept spreading his likeness that was imitated by the people in that village. Though you've never heard of John Brainerd though, you can't even find those settlements on a map today in between Philadelphia and Princeton. They're not even there. I went looking on the internet this week, say, oh, where is that? It doesn't even exist anymore.

And yet it's been imitated that faith. It went out the, those Indians shared it with other Indians and maybe shared it with that white family that moved into their area and this white family and, and on it went. And there could be recipients here that it just kind of filtered down to.

Used to have a, a pastor. I came to saving faith and under college he said, wouldn't it be wonderful when we get to heaven and you get to see your family tree. He meant your spiritual family tree. Wouldn't That be a fun exercise?

Paul here is, is speaking about the church community as a whole though not individuals. He, he's using the singular, not the plural. And this church it's example is going forth. And that's what I want us to think about in closing this evening, us as a church.

First is University Reformed church such a community?

Are we this

a community? I can say with the Apostle Paul, we're not already perfect. We know that. And yet we want to be a community of faith in Christ. Those who, as Paul says here, have turned from the idols of this world to the living in true God. And thus our lives look drastically different from the world around us. And our a community can't help. But notice is, and there's an allure to it, how strange they are at university Reform church.

Those are odd people, but they're strangely lovely. They're kind and they're generous and they're loving. They seem firm in their convictions of being gracious with those convictions. They're filled with hope and with joy. A community in which people walk into this building and they can't get out of, of this building without receiving warm hospitality. That just is strangely different.

It's not like anywhere else I've been.

They know that we are a community that has pulses here is waiting, we are waiting for the son of God that they, they get engaged not just on a personal level when they walk in these doors, but they get engaged with Christ.

No one should be able to get outta these doors without hearing of Christ. And not just from here, but in the conversations that are happening there and there and there and there for the hear about the great hope that we have that he is going to return, he is going to raise the dead as Paul says here, to return and deliver us from the wrath to come that we live as citizens of heaven. That our great pursuit is not the things of the world,

but we live with eternal hope. Having our eyes collectively set on Christ's return. And we gain a reputation for that because it's true of us.

We're not worldly minded, we're not petty, we're not being frivolous, we're not wasting our days. Positively means we are valuing things. This community above all others that we're worshiping week in and week out, that we're making sacrifices together for the sake community. Are we living in such a faith that we would be happy for others to imitate us And we call them to it

something to think through, pray through. I hope so. Second,

are we living this way in such a way that we want our likeness to be multiplied? Can we say that I want our likeness to be multiplied?

I hope so. 'cause this is part of the reason that we're busy planting churches and seeking to put some of our DNA and churches that we plant in other places and seeking to send people out. We want to live as a community that sends forth our faith in God everywhere where people all over the state and all over the country and all over the world, dear we dream are looking back and maybe in generations to come are looking back

and say, oh, university reform church, that place in East Lansing that I worshiped at and was at there in the early 21st century, Man, That was something. And I wanna see a church like that here now.

And we sought to imitate Christ so deeply what we have others eventually want to have as their planting churches.

Finally, am I playing my part in this community? It's interesting that Paul is ending this with focusing upon the fact that they are a community and that that their witness has become a source of imitation for others in Macedonia and Akea. But the way that he begins it is he says, I am thankful for every single one of you.

It is fascinating and that's because it takes every single one of us to make the whole.

And so every single one of us matters. And the question is this. Am I participating in a healthful and health filled and fruitful way to make it so that this community university, reformed church like First Presbyterian Church, if Thessalonika

is worthy of imitation,

it's my life engaged in such a way. Am I pursuing Christ in such a way

that I'm contributing to this?

It's a good reason for some personal reflection. We can all do that faith, hope, love and truly living a life of faith and faithfulness before our God. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are thankful for the great saints that have come before us whose, whose shoulders we stand upon that have guarded the good deposit, who have passed it on in word and in life. And we pray that you would help it to be true of us. That we as a church would be a living, breathing community of faith, hope and love that we can easily say, imitate us as we imitate Christ. I may you use us for your glory and for your praise.

Lemme pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.